


the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living

by hakyeonni



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Angst, Character Death, Depression, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Near Death Experiences, Romance, author! jaehwan, death! taekwoon, idk how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 02:40:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17092508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: this is the story of the man who fell in love with Death.





	the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living

**Author's Note:**

> title shamelessly stolen from [damien hirst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_Death_in_the_Mind_of_Someone_Living). also this fic is a ~~bit~~ quite dark?? nothing out of character for me so if you've read my stuff before you know what I'm like, but it's kind of hard to write a fic about death and have it be sunshine and rainbows ya kno, so yeah **please read the tags**. (also the style is different to my normal stuff, a bit weird?? I hope u like it!!)

_he carries the evening in his chest_  
_and knows he must wither away_

_~_

_17th December 1983_  
_2:53 am_

It’s snowing the night Jaehwan dies.

 _No_ , he thinks as the car impacts him, travelling far faster than it has any right to. The world is a blur as he’s slammed into the asphalt, the car’s wheels driving directly over his chest, immediately causing massive internal hemorrhaging. But he doesn’t know any of that. All he knows is _no, no, no_ , the squeal of tires as the car speeds away, the silence of the snowfall, the cold and wet of the ground, and the strange gurgling sound his lungs are making as he breathes.

“Not—” he says, and coughs wetly. “Not like _this_ , fuck.”

He has just enough strength left in his dying body to roll feebly over onto his front. The intersection is empty, the footpaths deserted; his vision starts to go black around the edges and he realises, pathetically and far too late, that he is about to die in the middle of this road, utterly alone. It wasn’t meant to be like this, not today—of all days, not _today_ —

He appears out of the snow like some kind of vengeful god, moving slowly and gracefully, and at first Jaehwan’s brain can’t quite process what the fuck it is he’s seeing. A man—a man-like creature, he supposes, given that said man has six ebony wings sprouting from his back, spread wide as he walks. The snow swirls around him without touching him, and the expression on his face, even though his eyes are closed, is one of peace.

He is Death, and Jaehwan knows he is done for.

He turns and does his best to start crawling away, but he’s hampered by the slip of the snow underneath his elbows, and by the fact that with every movement he can feel his lungs filling with blood. There’s not even panic, not really. His brain has checked out entirely. He knows what’s coming next, but the most animalistic part of him, the rawest, most basic human part of him, still fights it. He moans quietly when Death’s arms come around him, picking him up and cradling him, and pressed to his chest Jaehwan can see just how beautiful he is. He still has his eyes closed, and is humming a tune quietly under his breath, the feeling of it reverbing through Jaehwan’s dying body—it’s too much, and he grabs at the fabric of Death’s shirt, feeling it scrunch under his fingers.

“Please,” he says, and Death’s eyes snap open and he looks down at Jaehwan right at the moment Jaehwan coughs, spraying blood all over that wonderful face. The blood doesn’t even mar his features, though, it highlights them, and Jaehwan leans closer, eyelids flickering as he struggles with the last part of his strength remaining. “Please.”

As if he is possessed, Death leans in, his lips parting. They are a hair’s breadth away from kissing, and as much as Jaehwan does not want to die there’s something unbelievably alluring about this—but Death does not kiss him. He instead strokes Jaehwan’s face, eyes wide. He looks stunned. Jaehwan, fading, does not understand.

“Not today,” Death whispers, his thumb tracing a line over Jaehwan’s lower lip. “Not today, my love.”

The funny thing about the human body is that the brain is aware of its own death. In certain circumstances, there’s a period between where the heart stops and the brain dies where neurological processes continue. Modern science cannot explain why this happens, or even how long it occurs for; it’s speculated that the duration can range from seconds to minutes. This means that when Jaehwan’s heart stops he feels it, and the knowledge that he is dead hits him like nothing else he’s ever known. He can’t breathe, or move, or even close his eyes. All he can do is scream inside his own head at the injustice of it all—but that too is fading; conscious processes are the first to go.

The last thing he sees, before the conscious part of him slips away—before Lee Jaehwan dies in the middle of the empty intersection near Seoul Station, at only eighteen years old—is Death leaning in closer, closer, the press of lips to his forehead, and then he ceases to be.

 

 _17th December 1983_  
_3:03 am_

_Six minutes is an awfully long time to be dead._

Jaehwan screams—the pain of the car running over him, the feeling of his chest crunching underneath the weight of it, is all suddenly very real. He’s sitting up and scrambling away from danger before he can process what’s going on, or even where he is. There’s, there’s snow, and there’s a man crouching in front of him—

Not a man. Not even close. Six wings, huge and black. Blood all over his face, red and crystallising in the freezing cold. Jaehwan shudders and gasps, a hand on his stomach as if to hold him together, and he remembers it, he remembers it all.

“I was saying, six minutes is an awfully long time to be dead,” Death says, and cocks his head. “I wasn’t sure if you’d actually come back.”

The cold pierces his lungs—no longer filled with blood, he notes—and sharpens his senses, and he glowers as fiercely as he can manage. “ _Fuck_ you.”

“I saved your life!” Death gets to his feet, and the sight of him at his full height, with those wings, _God_ , those wings… Jaehwan shudders and scrambles backwards further. “Well. Sort of. I didn’t take it, at least.”

“Stay the fuck away from me,” Jaehwan gets out through chattering teeth. “No, don’t come closer, fucking don’t—”

But Death pays him no heed. He stalks over, bends down, slides an arm underneath Jaehwan’s waist and hauls him upright with a smile, like this is normal day for him. Hell, maybe it is. Jaehwan doesn’t know. “Hush,” Death whispers, leaning in close. “I can just as easily undo what I did.”

“Don’t threaten me you fucking—fucking psychotic bastard!” Jaehwan shoves him away, ignores Death’s laughter ringing in his ears. “Who _are_ you?”

Death stops laughing abruptly. “You know who I am.”

“Why—why me?” When Death doesn’t answer, Jaehwan stalks closer and raises a hand as if to slap him, but Death catches his wrist. “Answer me, you fucking prick—why _me_ —”

Moving slowly, Death reaches out to touch his face, but it’s not a predatory touch. It’s a soft one, the touch of a lover (or what Jaehwan imagines the touch of a lover to be like, because it’s not like he’d know), a caress. “I don’t know,” he murmurs, more to himself than to Jaehwan, and the anguish is painfully visible on his face. “I… don’t know.”

Jaehwan only allows himself to be still for a moment. Perhaps he should be afraid, but his heart is pounding in his head not with fear but with anger, indignation, confusion, disbelief. Up close, Death’s even more beautiful. His hand, resting on Jaehwan’s cheek, is soft. A small part of Jaehwan longs to cover that hand with his own, but the urge fades within a second, and he steps away.

“Stay the fuck away from me,” he spits, scooping to pick his bag off the ground and noticing with a shudder the pool of blood it lies next to.

Death snorts. “We’ll meet again, Jaehwan.” Before Jaehwan can protest, he holds up a hand, eyes glittering with an emotion that Jaehwan can’t identify. Hell, maybe he doesn’t even _have_ human emotions. He’s clearly not human. The wings are testament to that. “I meet everyone, in time. It will be a pleasure to see you again.”

Jaehwan doesn’t bother to respond. Death vanishes, and he’s left alone in the intersection where he died, the snow falling to quickly cover his lifeblood on the road.

 

 _17th December 1983_  
_3:48 am_

He staggers in and sits on the floor to untie his boots, but then he’s lying on his back staring at the ceiling, and he’s not quite sure how it happened. He doesn’t have the strength nor inclination to move. All he can do is lie there, the warmth of the ondol seeping into his back, and turn everything over in his mind.

What does he remember? He can start there. He’d been hurrying across the road. The light had been green—he’d had his head down, looking at the snow-covered road and trying not to slip. He hadn’t heard the car until it was too late, and he’d only just looked up at it before it hit him. The sensation of being run over… he shouldn’t remember it, he shouldn’t, but he does. He remembers the knowledge that he was dying, he remembers Death, and he remembers feeling his heart stop and being aware of the fact.

And then he was brought back.

“Jaehwan?” A voice calls from deeper inside the house, and Jaehwan struggles upright just in time for his mother to round the corner of the hall and see him there. “Jaehwan!” she shrieks, and he realises, absentmindedly, that there’s blood on his jacket. “Oh my _God!_ What happened? Are you okay? Stay there, I’ll call 119—”

“No, it’s fine,” he says, catches her wrist so she can’t head for the phone. “I just—”

“Jaehwanie, there’s blood all over you. What happened?” She draws him to his feet and cups his cheeks. He hates to see the concern on her face. It ages her, and he’s not ready to see his mother aging before his eyes, not just yet.

How can he even begin explaining? She won’t believe him if he tells her the truth. He can scarcely believe it. This day doesn’t feel real, hasn’t felt real since the beginning, and the exhaustion hits him at once. “I… I got hit by a car.” She squeaks, and her hands on his face tighten, squishing his cheeks. “I’m _fine_ , don’t worry. I just… got a, uh, a nosebleed from the shock. That’s why there’s blood on me. But the car barely scraped me. I’m fine.”

“Why were you out so late in the first place! Oh my god, Jaehwan, you need to go to hospital—”

He cuts her off by reaching for his bag and pulling out the entire reason he was in the intersection near Seoul Station in the first place, handing it to her with a ghost of a smile. “Happy birthday,” he says, and even manages to inject some enthusiasm in his voice. Somehow.

It’s a book of all his short stories, professionally hand-bound and printed, done by a tiny place in the alleys in Dongja-dong, somewhere he’d found only through calling around when his mother was out of the house so she wouldn’t figure out what he was up to. The cover is even embossed, _Lee Jaehwan_ in nice letters, and he has to admit he’d felt pretty proud seeing the first—and possibly only—anthology of his works. His mother looks down at the book and back up at him, but the worry is still written in her eyes, in the way her lips turn down at the corners even when she tries to smile through it. “Oh, son,” she sighs, “you didn’t have to do this.”

He knows. She’d said. But he did, and it had got him killed. Such is life—or is it Death? He nearly starts laughing, and the mirth must show on his face because his mother frowns harder. “I—” he gets out, and cuts himself off violently. _I met Death today_ , he nearly said. _I think you’d like him._

“I need sleep,” he says instead, and it’s not a lie.

He lets her guide him to bed, even though it’s her birthday and _he_ should be taking care of _her_. She tucks him in and smooths his hair over his forehead, making him feel much younger than he is—next year he can vote and buy cigarettes and march off to the army—but soothed nonetheless. He’s asleep the moment his eyes flutter shut, but he sleeps restlessly, unable to get the sound of feathers out of his mind.

 

 _12th September 1985_  
_1:51 pm_

Time passes, and with it the folly of youth, which is what Jaehwan writes the incident off as in his mind. Simply a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep and the circumstances he found himself in. He tells this to himself so feverishly that he begins to believe it, and by the time two years passes it is the only conclusion his brain can draw. He’d had a terrible shock when the car had hit him, and in his delirium had dreamed up a beautiful angel of Death. The touch on his cheek—imagined, as is the horrible gurgling feeling of blood in his lungs.

(Sometimes, though, he wakes in the middle of the night, sure his heart has stopped.)

He finishes lunch early and trudges outside, regulation boots splashing through the puddles formed from this morning’s rain. It’s _officially_ frowned on to smoke in uniform, let alone on base, but more often than not Jaehwan’s smoking with not only his fellow grunts but also officers, so it’s yet another rule that’s not enforced. He’s alone when he rounds the back of the building, though, and pulls out his pack and sighs. He’d only picked up this habit because of everyone else, and he’s still not quite used to the routine of it.

He hears it when he’s clicking his zippo over and over, trying to get the damn thing to light. It’s the flapping of wings, a sound that chills him down to the bone. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and his hands begin to tremble, and the most animal instinct in him roars to turn and face his Death—but his rational mind cannot. To turn will undo years of self-imposed hypnosis, and the desperation outweighs the fear for now.

“Those things will kill you, you know.”

The voice is just as sultry as he remembers— _imagined_ —remembers it to be. A hideous shudder rolls its way down his spine, but instead of responding he just rolls his thumb over the lighter again. This time it lights, and he holds it to his cigarette and inhales with all the desperation of a drowning man, exhales shakily, and turns.

He has not changed, but then, Death is a constant and so Jaehwan sort of expected that. Now he’s not bleeding out on the road he can take in details he didn’t notice before, like how Death’s got an ear piercing and a dangly earring, and how he’s wearing a strange, flowy black blouse. His wings are just as magnificent as Jaehwan remembers. He can’t draw to save his life, but he’s spent far too much time doodling figures with six wings in the margins of notebooks and on letters home. His pitiful scratchings come nowhere close to the ones in front of him now; he sways closer, overwhelmed with their beauty. Each feather is so black and shiny it’s almost reflective in the pale sunlight, but the ones closest to Death’s back look fluffy and soft, and he longs to touch.

Instead he just raises his cigarette to his lips and inhales defiantly. “Yeah? Hadn’t heard.”

“Insolent,” Death mutters, but there’s no weight to it and he steps closer. His wings move with him, swaying gently with the action, hypnotic. “Isn’t this the part where you tell me to fuck off?”

“No, this is the part where I ask you why you’re here.”

“To see you,” Death says, “my love.”

The words send a jolt through Jaehwan’s body, shocking and visceral because he can sense the truth between them. They’re not just a quip intended to set him off-balance, although they’ve done that too. Death is being honest, and he can’t handle that, so he just shakes his head. “You’re lying.”

“One thing you should know about me is that I never lie. Point of pride for me.” Death takes another step closer. “And I would never lie to you.”

He’s close enough that Jaehwan can see the fine lines in his lips, pink and glistening, and his heart starts to race. This time when Death touches him, he recognises the touch for what it is; he’d lost his virginity last year to a girl he swore he loved, and he can recognise the familiarity and comfort in a lover’s touch. It’s with this same familiarity and comfort that Death cups his cheek and then slides his hand down to rest on the back of Jaehwan’s neck. Perhaps he should be disgusted. Perhaps he should put his cigarette out in Death’s eye. But instead he allows himself to be dragged in, his heart thudding in his ears as his entire world narrows down to this: Death, his features schooled into a careful mask, and the way that they’re so close Jaehwan can feel the warmth of his body. Their lips are millimetres away from meeting and Jaehwan wants to kiss him more than he wants the air in his lungs—

“No,” he snarls, and places both hands on Death’s chest and shoves him away, hard. It’s the fear that makes him do this more than anything else, the deepest darkest human instinct to _live_ taking over him and making him move. Humans are animals, after all, and just like animals resort to their basic instincts when terrified. Right now every beat of his heart is saying _I don’t want to die_ , and he somehow knows that if he is ever to kiss Death, he will cease to be right then and there.

“Ouch,” Death cries melodramatically, putting a hand over his heart like Jaehwan’s actually hurt him. “You wound me.”

“You _killed_ me—”

“No.” Death shakes his head. “The _car_ killed you. I merely arrived to take you away. I’m not a murderer, Jaehwan, as much as you would no doubt like to make me one.”

They’re speaking like they’re friends, casually and familiarly, and it turns Jaehwan’s stomach. His brain still refuses to process the fact that the _angel of Death_ is standing in front of him once more, after he spent so long repressing the memories and forming them into something else entirely. It’s not fair. It’s not _fair_. Normal people don’t die alone and cold in the middle of the road—normal people aren’t haunted by Death like this—normal people don’t stand in the cool September air and meet Death’s eyes and feel their heart rate respond in turn, not with dread but with something else he can’t examine for fear of losing his mind entirely.

“Can you tell the future?” he blurts, and then takes a frantic drag of his cigarette so he doesn’t say anything more.

Death raises an eyebrow. “Parts. The future is always shifting. Nothing’s static. So not entirely, no.”

 _Do you know when I’ll die?_ he wants to ask, because—because there it is again, that urge, the animal fear of death, to keep going and going and going because what comes after is a mystery. He does not give into the urge to ask, even though it nearly bursts free of him and he swears he must go red with the effort of holding it in. Instead he just inhales his cigarette so frantically he starts to become light-headed and the outline of those wings, those wings, starts to get fuzzy.

“Leave me alone,” he croaks.

Shaking his head sadly, Death takes a step back. “I cannot.”

He’s gone before Jaehwan has a chance to argue. One second he’s there and the next he’s gone, leaving nothing but the wind buffeting his face and the end of his cigarette burning to nothing in between his fingers. He can hear the voices of his comrades coming to join him, and when they arrive they ask him if he’s alright, because he’s so pale he looks like he’s seen a ghost. He doesn’t even have the strength to joke with them. He just stands there and smokes cigarette after cigarette, pretending he’s craving the nicotine to deny that he’s craving something else entirely.

 

 _26th June 1988_  
_2:12 pm_

His graduation goes in a blur of gown-speeches-stage-diploma-photo-smile-hugs-more photos, and even though he swears he sees a flash of black wings in the audience at one point, overall it’s a rather seamless operation. His mother even cries, which is nice of her considering he knows she’s still disappointed in him for not studying something else (anything else) rather than creative writing and English literature. She hasn’t told him that. He just knows, the way sons know these things about their mothers, and so he values her tears more than he would otherwise and wipes them from her face carefully.

Afterwards he makes his way to the café as per usual, and although they usually try and refrain from touching in public, he grins and lets Hakyeon pick him up and spin him round in a hug that could be brotherly to anyone watching closely. “I’m so proud of you,” Hakyeon murmurs into the skin of his neck, and he looks beautiful like this—eyes shining, grinning, hands fiddling nervously with a thread on his shirt. “How was it?”

 _I saw him,_ he wants to say, the words coming to him unbidden. But Hakyeon doesn’t know— _can’t_ know—about Jaehwan’s fascination, and so he just shrugs. “You know how it is. Speeches. Crying parents. The lot.”

If the first two years since the incident at Seoul Station he spent repressing, in the two years since he last met Death on base in the damp September air he’s spent obsessing. He’s done so much research on death as a concept and Death the figure that he’s a veritable expert, and yet he still doesn’t have any answers. It’s frustrating, and his frustration only leads him to obsess more, and so the cycle goes.

“Yeah. I thought my mother wouldn’t stop bawling at mine.”

Jaehwan hadn’t been allowed to go. That would have aroused suspicion—to Hakyeon’s parents, he’s just that Nice Lee Jaehwan Boy, Hakyeon’s hoobae and someone they have around for dinner sometimes. To push the bounds of familiarity would be dangerous, and they can’t afford it; instead he’d waited at the cafe afterwards and listened to Hakyeon recount it minute-by-minute, hands painting a picture in the air. Jaehwan had nodded and made all the right noises, but at the time it felt like a death blow to their relationship. Hakyeon leaving university would just make things harder. It did, for a time, but they found a new routine and settled. It helps that Hakyeon now has a proper job and his own apartment.

“I got you a graduation present,” Hakyeon says quietly, gently pulling Jaehwan away from the inside of his own head. It’s why they work so well together; Hakyeon knows just when to reach in and pull Jaehwan out before he gets in too deep.

“Oh?”

It’s only now that Jaehwan realises that Hakyeon is nervous. He’s not very good at hiding things, and right now he’s jiggling his leg and fidgeting more than he normally does. His fingers tremble as he pushes a small wrapped box across the table towards Jaehwan, and he stares at it curiously. “Here,” Hakyeon murmurs, and the look on his face is hopelessly hopeful. “Open it.”

Jaehwan does, peeling up the sticky tape slowly, being careful not to tear the paper. Inside the box is nothing but a key, fresh-cut by the looks of its shine, and he looks at Hakyeon, not comprehending. “What?”

“It’s… a key to my place.” Hakyeon automatically drops his voice and leans in, in case anyone is eavesdropping, and a faint thought flits through the back of Jaehwan’s mind: _I wish we didn’t have to hide like this._ “I… I know you have to move out of the dorms, and… I don’t know. I was… I mean. Do you want to move in with me?”

A chill runs down Jaehwan’s spine and he hears the flapping of wings—audible to only him, no doubt. He doesn’t turn, even though part of him burns to. He can practically feel Death looming over him, knows that if he leans back his head will hit Death’s hip, and Death will lean down and kiss him and—

“Yes,” he blurts, refocusing on Hakyeon and Hakyeon alone, the only thing that matters. “I’d fucking love to, hyung.”

They can’t hug again, not in public, but for just a second they can squeeze each other’s hands under the table and it’s enough, for now. They leave the cafe jubilant and excited, not bothering to keep the appropriate distance and instead wrapping their arms loosely around each other as they walk.

Jaehwan swears he hears Death laughing as he goes, but still he does not turn.

 

 _29th June 1988_  
_2:57 am_

_“One day,” Death purrs, hand stroking down the side of Jaehwan’s cheek, “one day you’ll come to me.”_

_“I won’t!” It comes out as a shriek, but Death just starts laughing. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t, I want to live, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die—”_

“Jaehwan!” Hakyeon yells, and as Jaehwan’s eyes open and he snaps back to consciousness he doesn’t even have to look at the clock to know what time it is. _2:57_. The time he died. “Jesus christ, are you okay? You had a nightmare.”

He sits up slowly and winces. His head is pounding, as it always is after these nightmares, and he blindly gropes for Hakyeon’s hand on the blankets. “Fine,” he rasps, but pulls Hakyeon close, nestles into the side of his neck. “Fine. I’m fine. We’re fine.”

Lies, he knows.

 

 _5th February 1989_  
_4:01 pm_

It seems to come upon him slowly.

That’s the way these things go, isn’t it? You’re fine and dandy until you’re very suddenly not, and you can’t remember how you got there. Jaehwan is just fine and dandy until he’s got a full packet of sleeping pills in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other, and the flap of wings behind him comforts him in a way he’s never felt before.

“My love,” Death breathes, and then Jaehwan’s turning around and stepping into the circle of his arms.

The pills and vodka hit the floor, the bottle shatters and liquid seeps all around them, but Jaehwan isn’t paying attention to any of that. All he can focus on is the feel of feathers. He buries his hands in them, tugs Death even closer, amazed he can _touch_ them, that they’re _real_.

“How did you get here?” Death continues, pulling away to cup Jaehwan’s cheek just like he does in Jaehwan’s nightmares, and his dreams. “What happened?”

It’s cliche after cliche, isn’t it? He’s stitched together with them, and at this point he takes solace in the stereotype of it all: a struggling artist sinking deeper and deeper into depression, drinking more and more and seeking a way out of it all. Maybe it had started with his failure to find proper work. Maybe it had started with his first rejection letter. Maybe it had started with Hakyeon’s new job, how he’s never at home to keep Jaehwan afloat, meaning he’s left with nothing but the solace of his own mind—and that’s always been a dangerous place. But all he knows now is the crushing breadth of nothingness and numbness he feels these days, broken only by haunting despair and utter hopelessness.

He can’t answer Death, because he doesn’t know the answer.

“Come to me,” Death urges, pulling Jaehwan down onto Hakyeon’s threadbare sofa with him. His arms are tight on Jaehwan’s waist, but not in a controlling way. His wings are holding and enveloping Jaehwan in a soft embrace of feathers, and when he turns his head to bury his face in them he finds they have a pleasant smell, completely unlike what he expected.

One kiss. That’s all it would take, and Jaehwan _wants_ to—he not only wants to die but he also just wants to fucking kiss Death, because he’s beautiful. He laces his hands through Death’s hair and pulls him close, delirious with not caring, but then that deep-seeded instinct within him, the animal part of him, recognises Death for the danger that he is and he freezes, unable to move any closer. Death can see the war within him and leans in, his breath warm on Jaehwan’s face. “It won’t hurt,” he whispers, and then his fingers trace over Jaehwan’s lips. “We can be together forever.”

 _I want you!_ Jaehwan’s brain screams. _Danger!_ another part of him shrieks. He can’t move, frozen in indecision and fear, but then he thinks of Hakyeon. He thinks of Hakyeon coming home to find him dead on the living room floor, empty pill packets scattered around him; he imagines the funeral, his mother’s eulogy, the way she’d sob, and he _can’t_. “Fuck,” he breathes, and doesn’t move because Death’s touch is weirdly stupidly comforting. “I _can’t,_ I can’t—”

Death doesn’t resist as he disentangles himself and stumbles away, running his hands through his hair. His heart is racing and he genuinely can’t tell if it’s from the fear or from the thrill of being so close to Death. He doesn’t know if he’s going insane or not. He doesn’t know anything except that today he’s not ready to die, and he kicks the pills under the sofa and groans, head in his hands. “I want you,” he croaks, and looks up at Death. “Why? Why the fuck—that shouldn’t be possible.”

For once, Death is speechless, mouth gaping slightly open. “Everyone comes to me in the end—”

“This is different, and you know it.” Jaehwan steps closer and steps right onto the broken glass of the vodka bottle, swears and goes down on a knee. “Fuck! This is all your fucking fault. You did this when you saved me that night.”

“This?” Death asks, a smile on his lips as he points at Jaehwan’s bleeding foot.

“You know,” Jaehwan says through gritted teeth, “exactly what I mean.”

The smile fades. Death frowns instead, and it mars his beautiful face. “Yes,” he murmurs, almost more to himself as he leans forward off the sofa, those gorgeous, horrifying wings spreading slightly. “That was… an anomaly. I do not regret saving you, my love. I would do it again.”

Jaehwan looks up at him, seething, roiling with all the pain inside, all the suffering of his existence hitting him at once. “I wish you _hadn’t_ ,” he spits. “Get out. Go. I don’t need you—just _go_ —”

He does, leaving Jaehwan with nothing but the blood and vodka all over the floor as a reminder of what just happened.

 

 _6th February 1989_  
_2:30 am_

He starts his manuscript that night, fueled with the residual anger at Death’s words and by the urge to write tugging in him. It’s something he hasn’t felt in a while and he welcomes it, sitting and pounding away at his typewriter with such fierceness he doesn’t even realise Hakyeon coming home and then heading to bed. He writes until dawn, sleeps and then starts writing again, drinking coffee after coffee in an attempt to keep himself going.

He writes of his old friend, Death, and nothing more.

 

 _20th May 1992_  
_8:43 pm_

Hakyeon starts waving an envelope around the moment Jaehwan lets himself in, and for a moment he just stands there, frozen in place. “Jaehwanie!” he squeals, and Hakyeon never squeals. “It’s here!”

He doesn’t have to ask what. He almost wishes he could, that he could remain in ignorance; instead his heart rests inside that crisp white paper, currently being crumpled by Hakyeon’s overzealous fingers. He takes one step forward. Another. He hears his shoes echo on the tiles, and drops his bag.

“It’ll just be another rejection letter,” he says, more to himself so he doesn’t get his hopes up. But he says that every time, and every time, without fail, he ends up chain smoking and crying on the balcony, listening for the sound of feathers that never comes. “There’s no need to make a big deal of it.”

“No,” Hakyeon insists, and places the letter into his hand, wraps his fingers around it. “It’s different. I can feel it. Just open it. Please, before I go insane.”

Moving numbly and slowly, Jaehwan slips a finger under the edge of the flap and lifts and tears. The envelope goes fluttering to the floor as he pulls out the paper inside, and he almost wants to close his eyes—but he cannot, he cannot, his eyes betray him and begin reading.

What happens next is a lot of noise. Hakyeon spots the blood draining from his face and snatches the letter from his hand, and that’s when he really starts yelling. He pulls Jaehwan in for a hug, but he can’t move. The letter ends up on the floor between them, and Hakyeon’s cupping his cheeks and saying something, but he may as well be speaking French—Jaehwan can’t comprehend him. He can’t comprehend anything except _excellent, original plotline_ and _wonderful characters_ and _contract_ and _we’d love to have your manuscript with us._

Hakyeon opens champagne and pours them both a glass, laughs when Jaehwan sculls the whole thing in one go, refills it, goes to say something, reconsiders, turns away. Jaehwan cannot seem to move—that is until a gust of wind buffets him, and midnight wings wrap around him from behind, Death’s touch a ghost on his waist. He leans into it automatically, eyes still on Hakyeon, chattering away as he pulls food out of the cupboards (“a proper celebration,” he babbles, “because after all you’ve been through you deserve it”).

“Congratulations, my love,” Death purrs in his ear, his lips brushing up the side of Jaehwan’s neck.

 _How did we get here?_ Jaehwan thinks but doesn’t say. _How have I spent the last three years looking for you, wanting you?_

“Can he see you?” he breathes, voice nothing more than an exhale, but Death hears him and smiles against Jaehwan’s hammering pulse.

“No,” Death whispers, and as if to prove his point threads his hand through Jaehwan’s hair and pulls his head back slightly just as Hakyeon turns, smiles widely at them, and then continues pouring water into a pot. “Only if I want him to. Do you want him to see us?”

Every synapse in Jaehwan’s brain screams _NO_ , so violently that he stiffens and begins to pull away. Death doesn’t let him go, though, and then he’s being dragged even further into that warm, soft embrace that he’s spent so long dreaming of. “Don’t you dare,” he hisses, gritting his teeth as he feels, rather than hears, Death’s laugh through his back. “Don’t ruin this for me—”

“On the contrary, love, I merely wish to congratulate you.” At this, Death pulls away, pirouetting around Jaehwan to cup his cheek. His eyes, dark and sparkling with an emotion that Jaehwan cannot identify, narrow slightly. “Such a happy event.” He steps over to Hakyeon, shadowing his movements as he gets something from the fridge, and then the cupboard. “Such a happy couple…”

He’s dying all over again—his heart is racing, pounding, slamming into his chest so hard he can’t breathe, and there’s weird white spots in his eyes as Death trails a hand up Hakyeon’s arm, a hair’s breadth away from touching him. He leans in and closes his eyes, lips tracing an invisible, untouchable path down Hakyeon’s shoulder, and the implication is obvious. _He is mine._

“Please,” he whispers, letting the fear bleed through his voice. He can’t lose Hakyeon—he can’t, he can’t. He will be destroyed utterly. Hakyeon is the only thing that’s kept him going. The only thing that matters. “Don’t…”

Death meets his eyes and flashes him a maniacal smile that makes Jaehwan’s blood turn to ice. “One day,” he says simply. “One day you will come to me.”

Jaehwan blinks and he’s gone. There’s not even a feather to remember him by. All that’s left is the white noise in Jaehwan’s head and Hakyeon, crossing the floor to touch his neck, his arm. “Are you okay?”

He lies. He does what he’s been doing for close to a decade and he lies, because it is all he knows, and because he doesn’t have the capability to explain what he’s gotten himself into. Instead he tells Hakyeon that he’s fine, just shocked, and they kiss, and it’s fine. It’s all fine.

It would be easier, Jaehwan thinks, if he hated Death, and therein lies the crux of the issue. He does not. He is torn. And there is only so long a human can spend courting the company of Death before it begins to tear him apart. He knows that more than most.

 

 _19th November 1992_  
_10:08 pm_

The book is an instant hit. Copies fly off the shelves; it’s lauded as a wonderful debut from one of the most promising fiction writers in the country. It gets nothing but glowing reviews, and Jaehwan can relax into the feeling that for once something in his life is going right. It’s not something he’s used to—not for years, really—but the constant weight on his chest, the sorrow that never seems to leave, starts to abate a bit. Hakyeon seems happier, too. Jaehwan never really realised how worried he used to look, like caring about Jaehwan was his career.

He still looks for wings in the night air, but he does not expect to find them anymore.

 

 _2nd June 1993_  
_11:58 am_

Jaehwan had sort of expected things to blow over. The book would get published, there’d be hype, and then it’d fade as these things do. People would move on—he certainly has, and has to keep fielding requests for a sequel from his publisher. But instead he’s typing away at his new computer one morning (that he still can’t get the hang of, for the life of him, and still much prefers his typewriter) when the phone rings, and he lets it go before he remembers Hakyeon is at work and makes a mad dash across the apartment to get it.

What follows is possibly the strangest conversation of his life. It’s his editor, which isn’t that odd. What _is_ is that one of the Korean-Americans who work at the publishing firm read his book and thinks it’d do well in the American market. _The American market?_ he repeats, stupefied—America may as well be Mars for all Jaehwan knows. He’s never even thought about it, at least not in those terms. _But I can’t translate it,_ he tells them, and his editor laughs and says _no, of course not, we’d get it professionally translated._

He has no idea why Americans would want to read his book, but he agrees, more out of a vague curiosity than anything else. He really doesn’t expect anything to come of it—no doubt that to America, Korea is nothing but a tale of war and dictatorship, not, he suspects, a hotbed of writing prowess. But maybe he’ll get a free trip to LA out of it, and that’d be nice. Hakyeon’s always wanted to go overseas.

He puts it out of his mind and returns to the computer, forgetting the entire conversation the moment he sits down and starts pecking away at the keys.

 

 _21st October 1994_  
_2:05 am_

As it turns out, he was wrong.

For whatever reason, his book is so well-received in America that he gets invited to a book signing. And then another. And then another, all around the country. He doesn’t understand why, but he doesn’t complain; the money keeps rolling in and Hakyeon gets the overseas trip he bargained for and more. His publishing company releases a new edition in other English speaking countries, too; he can’t quite believe that people in England and Singapore and Australia and Canada and New Zealand and America and Sweden are all reading his book. They all love it, too.

He acquiesces to his publisher’s pleading, and begins a sequel.

He should be on top of the world (literally), but instead he begins to feel empty once more. Another hotel room. Another book signing. Another email from his publisher. Another distant phone call from Hakyeon, alone in Korea while Jaehwan languishes somewhere over the ocean.

Even Death stays away, which only leads Jaehwan to crave him more.

“Where are you?” he breathes, standing on a hotel balcony, somewhere (it doesn’t matter where, because it’s not home, and _that’s_ what matters). “Where _are_ you?”

But no one replies.

 

_6th November 1994_  
_5:28 am_

Even when he returns home, things are—

different.

Hakyeon touches him, but he can’t feel it; the numbness has spread outwards, from his soul to his skin. He’s a husk, and he writes because there’s nothing else he can do.

 _Death_ , part of him cries, _I want you_ —but as always Death is silent.

 

 _6th April 1995_  
_6:30 pm_

Happy birthday!

He spends it curled into a ball on the floor of his bedroom, having attempted to get out of bed but not made it much further than that.

Hakyeon finds him and starts sobbing openly—

 _I can’t do this,_ he says, _I can’t do this—_

 

 _8th September 1995_  
_12:30 pm_

Hakyeon leaves, sobbing all the while, and Jaehwan is catatonic on the living room rug. He is deaf and blind because if he can’t see or hear the only good thing in his life leaving, he will be fine, he’ll be fine, they’ll be fine, they’ll be fine.

“I love you,” hiccups Hakyeon, “but I can’t do this anymore, Jaehwan, you need help—”

The door slams behind him, a full stop, and

Jaehwan

is

nothing.

“Where are you?” he sobs, over and over, the sobs turning into screams that he muffles in a pillow he snags from the sofa. “Where are you where are you where are you—”

 

 _9th September 1995_  
_3:16 pm_

He hasn’t moved. He slept on the rug in the living room, unable to muster the energy to walk to his bed. He hasn’t eaten or drunk anything. He just lies there, staring into space, and that’s how Death finds him.

“Oh, my love,” he whispers, a hand stroking down Jaehwan’s face. “Come on.”

Perhaps it should be absurd, that the angel of Death picks Jaehwan’s limp body up and takes him to the bath, helping him wash his hair and then wrapping him in a towel off the rack—no, it is absurd. Clearly Jaehwan’s not just depressed, he’s psychotic, too. But if this is a hallucination, it’s an awfully real-feeling one. Death’s face is schooled into an expression of careful concern, like he really cares, and it’s all Jaehwan can do to lean into that because it is all he has left.

He sits on the edge of the bath and draws the towel further around him. “Why did you save me?” he whispers, croaks, voice hoarse from all the screaming yesterday. “I don’t under _stand_ —you should have let me die—”

“We do strange things for love,” Death interrupts, pointedly. His eyes are too-shrewd, and Jaehwan looks away.

“Hakyeon doesn’t love me.”

“Oh?”

“If he did, he’d be here.”

A pause. “Do you really believe that?” Jaehwan doesn’t answer. “He loves you too much to watch you die in increments—”

“Shut _up_ —”

“Am I wrong?”

“Don’t you _want_ me to die? Don’t you want me to come to you? That’s what you always taunt me with, you fucking bastard—don’t suddenly get moralistic now—”

Death’s face contorts, and then he’s kneeling between Jaehwan’s legs, grabbing his chin and pulling him close so that their lips nearly touch. “I want you,” he rasps, “more than I have ever wanted anything, and I am selfish, but watching you waste away is torture—”

With a horrible twist in his stomach, the final death blow, Jaehwan realises that being this close to Death is arousing him, his touch somehow searing through the layers of numbness that have surrounded him for years. This is the first thing he’s felt, _really_ felt, in so long that he can’t even remember the last time a touch burned like this. His heart thuds into life and he’s suddenly afraid, terribly afraid, because to kiss is to die and yet all he _wants_ is Death’s kiss—

Instead he shoves Death away with strength he didn’t even know he had. Death goes sprawling into the hallway and Jaehwan follows, shedding the towel and falling on top of him, needing to touch before he really does go insane. He bites at Death’s neck, gasps and grinds against him, their breath intermingling. This is the closest they will ever get. He shudders as Death wraps his wings around him; the touch of feathers is all he dreams of, all he’s dreamed of since he was eighteen and now at thirty he can’t quite comprehend it’s his reality. _His_ reality. His. His, his, his, _touch me_ , he begs, and Death does, flattening him on his back. They are heat and softness and compassion and love, and even though their lips do not meet, they meld and become one in the weak afternoon light of that sunny spring day.

 

 _10th September 1995_  
_6:18 am_

Jaehwan wakes.

Death is gone.

He is alone once more, and he closes his eyes.

 

 _17th May 1996_  
_11:36 pm_

Alone, alone, alone, alone, he walks alone through life, a ghost amongst humans. They laugh and smile and he watches, utterly empty, unable to even comprehend the concept of joy or happiness or—he can’t even remember what it feels to laugh, he realises vaguely.

He finds himself on the roof of his apartment block, walking grimly towards the railing as if possessed, but he can’t—he can’t do it. He’s always been a coward. He falls to his knees in the middle of the roof, stranded, and Death catches him.

“Now you show?” he gasps, and struggles weakly. “Let me _go._ ”

“Jaehwan—”

He snaps. The last of his sanity departs and he whirls, shoving Death away, hissing and spitting like a caged animal. “Please,” he begs, and starts crying. “Please, just—take me, I can’t do this anymore, I can’t—”

Death backs away with sad eyes. “No.”

“But—”

He is gone.

 

 _4th December 1998_  
_9:36 pm_

The funny thing about the human body is that the brain is aware of its own death.

He even thinks about it, right before it happens; he’s waiting for the green crossing light, on the way home from his therapy appointment, and the intersection is so calm and quiet in the falling snow that it reminds him of something. He has to think on it for a while—the antidepressants give him awful brain fog in the evenings—but then it comes to him and he snorts, breath frosting in the air. Of _course_. That time he nearly died.

The light turns green, and he steps out into the intersection, mind too occupied with thoughts of his own death to see the bus coming.

This time he does not go under the wheels. He is slammed violently against the front of the bus and, when it brakes suddenly, is flung into the middle of the road. He knows, instantly, that he is dying. It’s as much of a fact as the snow falling. Somewhere very far away he can hear screaming that’s not his own, but he’s too far gone to care about that.

He crawls. He gets up on his feet. He staggers one, two steps, his shoes scuffing in the snow. He slips and falls and gets back up again. There’s so much pain that he can’t even identify where it’s coming from—it’s just everywhere, his brain screaming in alarm at his dying systems, cells bursting and bleeding inside of him.

“Jaehwan.”

And there he is.

They have not seen each other in two years, but he is not changed. Jaehwan starts laughing, a laugh that turns to a wheeze that turns to a wet cough. He sprays blood all over Death’s shirt as he leans in and catches Jaehwan as he goes down for the last time. “You,” he chokes out, heart thudding weakly. “Not you again—”

“What is it with you and roads?” Death replies mildly, holding a wing over them to shield them from the snow. “You need to look before you cross, next time.”

“Ah,” Jaehwan gurgles, “somehow I don’t think there’s gonna be a next time.”

Death is silent, but his eyes say it all.

“Funny… how we always seem to go in cycles.” He can’t feel his legs, now, although whether it’s from the cold or from his internal injuries, he’s not sure. “I never thought we’d end up back where we began.”

Nothing.

“You can’t save me this time, huh,” Jaehwan whispers.

Death shakes his head sadly. “No… And it pains me greatly, my love.”

He closes his eyes and thinks of Hakyeon. He thinks of his cat, who he’d gotten as part of his therapy. He thinks of his parents and he thinks of his siblings and he decides that yes, it’s time to go. He opens his eyes again and smiles at Death; he really is the most beautiful creature Jaehwan has ever seen. With the last of his strength, he reaches up and cups Death’s cheeks, dragging him in. “I love you,” he gasps, and then—

The kiss is everything Jaehwan dreamed it would be, warmth and light and love, and his heart thuds to a stop in his chest as Death takes him and at last, in the snow and cradled in Death’s arms,

at last Jaehwan dies.

 

 _the last kiss was so long ago_  
_the last kiss_  
_he does not remember it anymore_

**Author's Note:**

> from the depths of my depression (and also watching Elisabeth far too many times, because Jung Taekwoon is made to play Death) I give you this. and yes I know the plot is slightly/very unbelievable but... as always with me I hope you could suspend your disbelief alkajalk hope you enjoyed. it's very (very very) loosely based on the plot of Elisabeth. i'm sorry it was so sad... was very cathartic to write. i poured a lot of myself into this.
> 
> lyrics at the beginning/end from [nebel (mist)](https://open.spotify.com/track/6DxTbdswlgfUp2mJ3vtptB?si=kSJgQho9RGScoopKG2KR4w) by rammstein, of course.
> 
> as always, feel free to talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hakyeonni) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/hakyeonni).


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